Passive Voice Detector
Find passive constructions in your writing, see the proportion of sentences affected, and get the pattern for rewriting each one actively without losing the meaning.
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What the passive voice actually is
A passive sentence uses a form of "to be" followed by a past participle, and the thing doing the action either appears after "by" or disappears entirely. "The report was written by the team" is passive; "The team wrote the report" is active. The distinction is grammatical rather than stylistic, which matters because a great deal of writing advice condemns things that are not passive at all: "there is" constructions, "was walking", and any sentence containing "was" are all frequently mislabelled.
The passive is not a fault
It is the right choice when the actor is unknown, irrelevant or deliberately withheld, and when the object is what the sentence is about. "The server was rebooted at 3am" is better than naming whoever did it if that is not the point. Scientific writing uses it heavily and correctly, because the method matters more than who performed it. The problem is not the construction but its use as a default, which produces prose where nobody does anything and responsibility is impossible to locate.
Where it does real damage
In documentation and incident reports, the passive hides the actor precisely where the reader needs to know who does what. "The certificate should be renewed" leaves the reader with no idea whether that is their job. In organisational writing it becomes a way to describe a decision without saying who made it. Rewriting those sentences actively is not a style improvement; it adds information that was missing.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I identify passive voice?
A form of "to be" followed by a past participle: is written, was rebooted, has been approved, will be reviewed. If you can add "by zombies" after the verb and the sentence still works, it is passive.
Is passive voice always wrong?
No. It is right when the actor is unknown, irrelevant or deliberately unstated, and when the object is the subject of the sentence. Scientific and legal writing use it correctly and heavily. The problem is using it by default rather than by choice.
What proportion is acceptable?
There is no threshold. Some style checkers flag anything over 10 percent, which is arbitrary. What matters is whether each instance is deliberate, and whether the hidden actor is information the reader needs.
Does this catch every case?
No. Detection relies on pattern matching against a list of irregular participles and the -ed ending, so it misses unusual participles and occasionally flags an adjective that looks like one, such as "was tired". Treat it as a first pass rather than a verdict.
Why does my "was walking" sentence not appear?
Because it is not passive. "Was walking" is past continuous active voice. A great deal of writing advice conflates the two, which is why so much text is criticised for passive voice it does not contain.
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How to Use
Paste your text to see which sentences use the passive voice and how to rewrite them.
Disclaimer: This tool is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Results are for educational and utility purposes.
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